I wonder how many folks reading this site know that a favorite
revolver cartridge of mine (possibly yours, too) was never supposed to
exist. While a theoretical .41 cartridgewhich could, and perhaps
should have been called ".41 Special"had been advocated for many
years by such experts as Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan, as a substitute
for the pathetically inadequate .38 Special used by most policemen up
through the 60s, the one that was developed and released was called
.41 Magnum.

And acted like it.

In some ways it's like the way that Norma presented us with the
10mm Auto cartridge, twenty-five years ago, instead of the milder
centimeter-sized cartridge that Jeff Cooper, "Yoda" of the .45 ACP,
envisioned.

What, I pretend to hear you ask, isor would have beenthe
difference? Well, let's look at .38 Special for an idea about that,
and at its more potent sibling .357 Magnum (they're both actually the
same diameter, 0.356-.358", the latter name simply being a matter of
marketing).

.38 Special was a gradual evolutionary development that began in
the late 19th century with various shorter .38 cartridges (some
interchangeable and some not) made by or for Colt and Smith & Wesson.
The cartridge that failed to do the job out in the Philippines during
the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Moro Uprising was one of
these. In its way, when .38 Special arrived, it was seen as a sort of
magnum.

For decades afterward, sixguns from the big N-framed S&W ".38-44"
(meaning a .38 Spl. on a .44 frame) through a number of K-frames (like
the famed S&W Models 10 and 15), to the diminuitive five-shot J-frame
Model 36 (now 60) "Chief's Special, were all intended for .38 Special,
and after the mid-30s, following the invention of .357 Magnum, even
those guns were meant to be used with .38 most of the time. It was
believed that a steady diet of the spiffier cartridge would destroy
them.

Although more modern (if not more effective) variations exist now,
.38 Special is traditonally loaded with a 158-grain round-nosed lead
bullet going about 800 feet per second. This yields 225 foot pounds of
energy and achieves a modest, if not downright embarrassing 22 on my
own scale of "Efficacy" where F (for "efficacy", of course) equals
kinetic energy times the cross sectional area of the bullet in square
inches.

Or, F=EA.

I regard F=50 as minimal for adequate self-defense. Weapons that
generate a lower number may be handier, lighter, or more concealable,
but they require tactics that are very different from those of larger
capabilities.

.357 Magnum, which came along much later than .38 Spcial, was a
big improvement. The same 158-grain bullet could be pushed faster with
more (and better) powder in a case lengthened by a mere 1/10" to make
it impossible to get the more powerful cartridge into a .38 Special
chamberwhich might convert an otherwise useful weapon into a
highly user-unfriendly hand grenade. Velocity was 1300 feet per
second, energy was 593 foot pounds, and the Efficacy was a solid 59,
exactly the same as that achieved by the world-famous man-stopper .45
ACP.

Now let's look at another pair of cartridges, .44 Special and .44
Magnum. The former was a product of the late 19th century, replacing
the .44 Russian and .44 American that S&W had made big break-top
revolvers for. These weapons are making a huge comeback as this is
written.

.44 Spl., too, was regarded as a sort of magnum. It's still a fair
choice if you avoid the lead round-nosed factory loads. Those bullets
weigh 246 grains. They travel at 800 feet per second, generate 350
foot pounds, and barely squeak by at a 51 on my scale of relative
schrecklichkeit, proving that my "F-scale" isn't just about bullet
diameter. .455 Webley/Colt is an even worse contender on the very same
scale.

Without much work or risk, you can load .44 Special to an adequate
velocity, fully on par with .45 ACP. However, it was by hot-loading
.44 Special in what was supposed to have been an especially strong
model of large-frame S&W called a "Triple Lock", that the legendary
Elmer Keith and his buddies invented what would later become known and
regularized as the .44 Magnum. The common factory load is a 240-grain
bullet at 1350 feet per second, for 971 foot pounds, and an "F" of
140.

No, it's not "the world's most powerful handgun" (and it wasn't,
even in the days of Dirty Harry), but it's absolutely formidable,
effective, and vastly easier to shoot than most people anticipate.
I've never introduced a new shooter to it who hasn't ended up with an
ear-to-ear grin on his or her face after firing it. A big western mule
deer shot with a .44 Magnum drops as if a meteor fell on it. For poor
little Bambi and his mommy, .44 Magnum is a personal Extinction Level
Event.

Since the introduction of the .41 Magnum in 1964, there have been
two power levels available over the counter. A 210-grain "hunting
load" at an advertised 1500 feet per second yields 1049 foot pounds
and an Efficacy of 139. I suspect that 1300, 788, and 104 are more
accurate figures. If there's a difference in recoil and noise between
this cartridge and .44 Magnum, I'm not sensitive to it. Ballistically,
.41 Magnum will do anything in a 8 3/8" barrel that .44 Magnum will do
in a 6 1/2" barrel. I have a 4" "Win Bear" Model 58 in this caliber,
an 8 3/8" Model 657, and a customized 3" Ruger three-screw Blackhawk.
I'd be happy to hunt game with any one of them, anywhere in North
America.

The other commercial variant is the so-called "police load", put
up in the same length case as the hotter load, and delivering a
210-grain lead bullet a velocity of 1150 feet per second, an energy of
617 foot pounds, and an Efficacy of 81. That's still a touch hot for
present purposes. It was an attempt to create a load that would entice
police departments to buy .41 caliber S&W revolvers, and it didn't
work. For some reason, it hurt almost as much to shoot as the hunting
load, leaded barrels badly, and I'm not sure that it's even made any
more.

Now if we wanted to build a true ".41 Special", an objective still
desirable today, what would it be like? First, we would shorten the
magnum case by a tenth of an inch. (Later, an outfit like StarLine
might manufacture the real thing.) Presumably revolvers (or at least
cylinders) could be made for such a cartridge and it would be more
accurate and cleaner, if fired in a chamber of proper length. Also,
lighter weapons like the Colt SAA could be converted, that would be
damaged by the power of the magnum load, and this would help prevent
that.

If we wanted to mimic the performance of .38 and .44 Spl., we'd
average the bullet weight to 202 grains and drive it at the same 800
feet per second the other two achieve, producing 287 foot pounds, and
F=38.

That's too weak for my taste, but I still want to stay within the
non-magnum range. Raising the velocity to 923 feet per second produces
382 foot pounds and a minimally adequate F=50. Raising it to 1000 feet
per second produces 449 foot pounds and the same 59 we get from .45
ACP.

I've had a lot of fun with the new .45 Colt "cowboy" loads, which
vary from 250 to 255 grains in weight, and from 750 to 850 feet per
second, all of them very modest, but highly effective and worthy for
self-defense. The proposed .41 Special falls into the same performance
range and would nicely fill a gap accidentally left by ballistic
progress.

It would also make a fine alternative for individuals with small
hands or those afflicted with arthritis, osteoporosis, or similar
problems.

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has
been called one of the world's foremost authorities on the ethics
of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The
American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach,
Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches,
Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website
"The Webley Page" at
lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel
Pallas was recently completed and is presently looking for a
literary home.

A decensored, e-published version of Neil's 1984 novel, TOM
PAINE MARU is available at:
http://payloadz.com/go/sip?id=137991.
Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the
epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. "Baloo"
May.

The stunning 185-page full-color graphic-novelized version of The
Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was
published by BigHead Press
www.bigheadpress.com
has recently won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, at
www.Amazon.com,
or at BillOfRightsPress.com.